The House Oversight and Accountability Committee will invite top Biden administration energy officials to a hearing on December 4 to discuss the administration's decision to suspend approval of certain new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities. [emphasis, links added]
Pat Fallon, a Texas Republican and chairman of the Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee, will lead the hearing, along with top Energy Department official Brad Crabtree and Biden senior climate adviser John Podesta You will be invited to the hearing.
The hearing will be continued scrutiny of one of the Biden administration's most aggressive policy initiatives targeting conventional energy, with lawmakers planning to ask about the following allegations: The DOE effectively buried a 2023 draft study that would have weakened the case for a moratorium before officially announcing the freeze in January 2024.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s decision to suspend new LNG exports harms our energy production and security. The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has repeatedly called on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Department of Energy to provide clarity on its decision to ban new LNG exports. Full transparency,” Fallon said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“However, Biden-Harris administration officials may have obstructed the investigation and withheld important information from Congress and the American people. This hearing is an opportunity to get further answers for the American people and hear from the people behind the policy why LNG exports have been effectively banned, causing harm to the industry and workforce.
Biden-Harris administration says Potential environmental, economic and safety impacts of LNG exports must be reviewed to ensure Approval of new capacity remains in public interest when it officially announced the suspension.
However, the government watchdog Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO) said The government may have conducted – or begun to conduct – such a review in 2023 before effectively burying it because it might have produced politically inconvenient conclusions.
DCNF first reported GAO's allegations in early October, prompting the Oversight and Accountability Committee and other lawmakers to demand answers and transparency from Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on the matter.
Rumor has it that the U.S. Department of Energy is preparing to release its analysis of the climate impacts of LNG sometime this week as Americans enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday.
Read the break from The Daily Caller
